Data is political

Robert showed me these Chladni figures this morning.

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2012-01-03

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If we cut Planned Parenthood the money saved could sustain the war for 3 hours 51 mins. $75 million for 800 clinics a year, or 4 hours of war. -Madeline McDonald Lane
dataispolitical

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Occupy Everything
and/or Evacuate

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Press release for Tim Berners-Lee's open data initiative.

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http://www.innovateuk.org/_assets/0511/open%20data%20institute%2029nov11%20final%20(2).pdf

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Reshared post from +Sergey Brin

In just two decades, the world wide web has transformed and democratized access to information all around the world. I am proud of the role Google has played alongside many others such as Yahoo, Wikipedia, and Twitter. Whether you are a student in an internet cafe in the developing world or a head of state of a wealthy nation, the knowledge of the world is at your fingertips.

Of course, offering these services has come with its challenges. Multiple countries have sought to suppress the flow of information to serve their own political goals. At various times notable Google websites have been blocked in China, Iran, Libya (prior to their revolution), Tunisia (also prior to revolution), and others. For our own websites and for the internet as a whole we have worked tirelessly to combat internet censorship around the world alongside governments and NGO promoting free speech.

Thus, imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress — SOPA and PIPA — give the US government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial). While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world.

This is why I signed on to the following open letter with many other founders – http://dq99alanzv66m.cloudfront.net/sopa/img/12-14-letter.pdf
See also: http://americancensorship.org/ and http://engineadvocacy.org/

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http://dq99alanzv66m.cloudfront.net/sopa/img/12-14-letter.pdf

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This image is brilliant.

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The system calls you and then connects you directly to the office of your representative in Congress based on the zipcode you enter. It feels very direct.

Reshared post from +Brian Fitzpatrick

Please, please PLEASE take 3 minutes to do this today–SOPA is a terrible piece of legislation and we all need to work to stop it. Even if you've never called your member of congress, this is important.

Today, our very own +Sergey Brin and 16 other Web luminaries sent a letter (http://goo.gl/NCSiB) to Congress opposing SOPA – the Internet censoring, innovation killing copyright legislation.

Go to this site, enter your info, and you'll be automatically connected with your congresscritter. It's ridiculously easy and fast.

http://engineadvocacy.com/voice/

Please share this far and wide – SOPA is heading for a committee vote tomorrow, so time is of the essence.

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Engine Advocacy
America's innovation economy could be put in peril if the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) passes through Congress. As drafted, SOPA will: Require web services to monitor what users link to or upload…

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Blows my mind.

Reshared post from +Esther Wojcicki

Great example of using Google + Hangouts. Here is the YouTube video

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Reshared post from +Mike Elgan

Most IP data theft done by 12 groups directed by the Chinese government.

AP reports that only 12 groups may be responsible for most of the intellectual property theft that has stolen billions of dollars worth of data in recent years.

Those groups are "largely backed or directed" by the Chinese government.

One example of this theft, from the article: "Two sophisticated attacks against Google's systems stole some of the Internet giant's intellectual property and broke into the Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists."

And while the Chinese government robs American businesses blind, the US government barely does anything about it, according to cyber security experts.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_CHINA_HACKERS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-12-12-06-51-17

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Delaney's at Denman.

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